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A Tennessee man died after he caught fire while hospital staff used a defibrillator on him.
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The man’s wife was in the room when her husband caught fire, saying WKRN that “it just blew up.”
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The hospital system said they are reviewing the “functionality of the equipment” following the incident.
A father died in Tennessee on Thanksgiving day after he caught fire when hospital staff tried to use a defibrillator on him.
Bobby Ray Stark was bedridden for seven years and relied on his wife of 35 years, Kathy Stark, for his care, according to WKRN. He went to the hospital for a foot infection and pressure sores last month and was then transferred to TriStar Centennial, where he coded and staff tried to revive him with a defibrillator, Kathy told the outlet.
“Then they started the paddles and it just blew up, everything,” Kathy told WKRN. “I saw that, and I just blew up.”
Kathy told the outlet that she saw flames cover her husband’s body.
“He was burned on his throat, face, head, chest and hands. And she got badly burned, she was on fire, and I said, ‘she’s on fire, put it out,’” Kathy told WKRN.
Staff took Stark to the burn unit, where he later died on Thanksgiving night, Kathy told the outlet. In the aftermath of his death, she is left with her daughter, Joyce Feakes.
The hospital told Kathy that “this has never happened before,” Feakes told WKRN.
“They need to make sure that doesn’t happen to someone else, so that someone else doesn’t lose their husband, their best friend, their father,” Feakes told the outlet. “And what’s worse, we lost it on Thanksgiving.”
In a statement to WKRN, a TriStar Centennial spokesperson said in a statement that the hospital expressed its “deepest condolences to this family on the loss of their loved one.”
“While we cannot discuss details, we are reviewing the care provided to the patient and the functionality of the equipment. The death of a loved one is always very difficult and our hearts go out to this family,” the hospital statement said.
Feakes started a GoFundMe to raise money for Kathy, who said she relied on Stark’s social security for income, according to the fundraiser’s post.
“She was in the room and she witnessed everything that had happened to her at Centennial. She not only has to deal with the loss of her husband and her best friend, but she has to live seeing and smelling everything that happened to her,” Feakes wrote on GoFundMe.
Read the original article at Well-informed person